🎮 More about Dragon Age: Veilguard, Life is Strange, Helldivers 2...
New Details about Dragon Age: Veilguard, New Details about Life is Strange, Helldivers 2 story mode is not happening, Arcane season 2, A Quiet Place Game, Banana Game and Personal Update
Hello friends,
Today is June 18th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 New Details about Dragon Age: Veilguard
🎮 New Details about Life is Strange
🎮 Helldivers 2 story mode is not happening
🎬 Arcane season 2 will be the last one
🎮 A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
🎮 Banana extravaganza
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 New Details about Dragon Age: Veilguard
More details about the game keep pouring in with the latest Q&A with the development team. I promise I’ll try to keep this short and stick to the major highlights. Speaking of which, here they are:
The game takes place 10 years after the Inquisition.
It seems like the game is not going to be open-world. It’s going to be mission-based with a main hub.
You won’t meet the person you left in the Fade from the previous game, but you’ll meet your customizable Inquisitor (just like Hawke in DA:I).
You won’t be able to control companions, you give them commands via combat reel and customize their outfits (like in Mass Effect). And in case the protagonist dies, it’s game over.
Only 2 companions in a party this time (like in Mass Effect 😅)
No Blood Mage specialization 😢
The deepest character creators yet, according to the Dev Team. Also, you’ll have the same selection of races for the main Protagonist (Human, Elf, Gnome and Qunari)
No mounts and no dog companions.
Phew, that’s all I’ve collected so far.
I have to say, some of these things sound really good. Like, at least we won’t have those incredibly stiff mounts from DA:I. But I rather enjoyed the open-world experience instead of a mission-based one. If the game is going to be something like Mass Effect 3, then I’m all for it. But I’d hate to play repetitive and filler missions over and over again to progress through the main story. I still want to explore and spend 40+ hours on the single playthrough.
So, fingers crossed that the team will do a better job this time around 🤞
🎮 New Details about Life is Strange
Last week the developers behind Life is Strange showed an 18-minute demo and gave an interview where they explained a little bit about the announcement trailer and some plot points that got fans (such as myself) in a bit of a twist.
They revealed that a new game will respect both endings of the original Life is Strange and during the game, a player will be able to understand what happened after the Arcadia Bay and what happened to Chloe regardless of her fate.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure takes part in college with Max being involved in yet another murder mystery. And the plot in general seems to be very distant from all the events of the previous game or at least that’s the vibe I’m getting from these initial chunks of information. Regardless, I’m relieved that the studio is respecting both endings and I’m looking forward to manipulating timelines.
🎮 Helldivers 2 story mode is not happening
Thanks to Insider Gaming and one really lucky user on X, we now have a definite answer from the Arrowhead CEO on the topic that’s been bothering the users since the initial release of the game.
As the CEO eloquently put in his response on X:
Not happening. Sorry bro. That’s like building an entirely new game.
I have to be honest, I’m a bit disappointed. I understand that the game wasn’t designed to be a story-driven experience but a coop PvE shooter. But considering the unpleasant and empty experience I recently had with this game, I’m not sure if it’s a great plan in the long run. So far I can see that the numbers are steadily declining in Steam Charts, but it still is one of the best coop experiences for some people.
I’m wondering how they will be able to retain users for more than 20 hours, as I’m failing to see the point of the game beyond this point, to be honest 🤔
If you haven’t subscribed yet, this button is just for you ⤵️
🎬 Arcane season 2 will be the last one
Last week we also got a first glance at season 2 of the series based on League of Legends lore, Arcane. As a person who used to (and still occasionally do) play LoL for almost 10 years, you can imagine my hype. I wouldn’t say I love the series, but I definitely don’t hate it.
Unfortunately, after just 2 seasons, they are calling it quits.
The trailer itself looks great and features a lot of amazing plots coming to their culmination, it seems. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing the final showdown between Vi and Jinx 💥
Riot creators already issued a statement saying that it’s not the end for adaptations and they have a lot of things coming down the road. And that gives me some hope, but I’m wondering how season 2 is going to feel. Hopefully, not rushed. But we’ll see in November 2024.
What do you think? Have you watched season 1? Are you looking forward to season 2?
🎮 A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
With a new spinoff movie about to hit the theatres and the third (and final) movie in development, Saber Interactive invested its time and efforts in making a horror game.
It looks like it’s been in development for quite some time and Judging by the trailer, the game looks quite tense. Obviously, the whole game is going to be focused on sound and noise management, surviving (probably?) and navigating the plot. Speaking of which, the game is allegedly going to include some untold details that we haven’t seen in movies. So that’s something look forward to.
"The A Quiet Place video game will let fans experience the tension of the films with a level of immersion they’ve never felt before."
Without any specific date so far, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2024!
🎮 Banana extravaganza
Ok, I’m not so easily shocked, but this is staggering.
Here are the top 5 games on Steam right now based on player count. Notice anything weird? Yeah, there is some sort of Banana game that’s crushing almost everyone.
To say that the game is nothing special would be a monumental understatement. Essentially, the game is about clicking on the static image of a banana and once every X amount of time you'd be rewarded with a skin for a banana (similar to Counter-Strike) that you’d be able to sell on the Steam Marketplace. That’s it. I’m not joking. That’s the whole “game”.
Depending on the rarity of skin you can get up to 1000$ for it. And because of that probably a lot of those users are actually bots that are mining those skins, but it’s still absolutely crazy. Somehow, a game that probably took someone a little over a day to put together ended up beating games that took YEARS!
I have no idea how this happened and who started this whole chain reaction, but it’s a bit confusing and alarming for me. Here we are, complaining about games that don’t have just as smooth animations as Baldur’s Gate 3 or not as deep plot as Witcher 3 or not as varied as GTA V. And a freaking 60 MB game about clicking on a banana reached more peak players than Apex or PUBG…I’m speechless…
😄 Personal Update
So, quite a lot of things happened on my end. I ended up playing and abandoning 2 games in a row 😅
Arena Breakout: Infinite turned out to be quite a mess after the initial excitement faded. A lot of cheaters, a broken economy, no progression and too many bugs to count are just a few things that were waiting for me during a closed Beta. Now, I understand that the game is still being worked on and I’m willing to give it another shot after the release, but it’s just unplayable so far in case you want better gameplay than being shot at right in the head 10 seconds after you respawn (which causes you to lose thousand in in-game currency in an instant).
The other one is Helldivers 2. Now, I played it a bit when it was released and I had a great time. But again, as with the previous example, this is a game where you notice flaws after spending some time with it. The controls are so confusing, the design decisions are very hard to understand and most importantly, there is no plot and end goal. You are collecting samples during your sessions that you can spend on mildly improving your stats and that’s it. Once you get to the point where you improve everything, the only thing left to do is the same group of missions over and over without a real objective. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think that this game is worth playing for more than 20-30 hours. During this timeframe, you can see everything the game has to offer and then some.
So with this in mind, me and my friends are looking for some new games to play in coop. If you have any good suggestions for coop games (besides Baldur’s Gate 3), please let me know 😅
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
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Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
What happened with you on Helldivers?